Chapter Four #3
“The fact that you care about what happens to your pack makes you a strong alpha,” Cole said in such a low, serious way that Shane had to look up.
“You’ll make the right choice for your pack.
You don’t have to do it tonight, though.
Take some time. Think it over.” Cole circled Paul’s name on the list, as if it had all been settled, then turned to Gage, who had sat silent up to this point. “Now, for you, squirt.”
Gage jerked. “Squirt?”
“Yeah. Are you going to make Declan your beta or what?”
The mechanic sneered. “No, I’m going to make Kimberly my beta.”
The sarcasm made the other alphas chuckle, but not Shane.
All at once, he was thrown back to earlier that day when Kimberly shot daggers out of her eyes the moment she saw him in her flower shop.
If looks could kill, he’d be six feet under already.
He could see her being a beta if it wasn’t for her lack of dominance.
But more than that thought, a hot boil of fury rose up in Shane. Even his wolf took offense at their laughter, a laughter directed at Kimberly.
“Don’t joke about her like that.” Shane didn’t have to even think twice about defending Kimberly in her absence.
Gage’s stare stuck on Shane and a bit of dominance spiked across the table.
Shane matched it. Like cold iron clashing, the alpha energy collided.
Like two warriors grappling one another, shoving and pulling, they wrestled in the spiritual while staying perfectly motionless in the physical.
It almost felt cathartic to finally unleash a bit of that unconscious resentment.
Resentment that Shane wasn’t Kimberly’s alpha.
Resentment that Gage was the one charged with taking care of her.
Resentment that Gage knew her better as a woman than Shane did, purely because he didn’t have the balls as a seventeen-year-old to run after the love of his life.
Shane’s hand tightened over his beer bottle almost in the same second Gage did. The impulse to throw it at his pretty face was strong.
“You should know better than anyone that Kimberly’s sensitive about her dominance.” Shane leaned closer over the table. “And if you don’t know that, then you’re not good enough to be her alpha.”
For just a split second, Gage’s eyes flashed a wolfish gold. It was a fortunate thing he wasn’t facing the majority of the bar.
“And you are? The asshole who ghosted her when she needed you the most? The kind of guy who lost his territory to a beta?”
Shane’s wolf was ready to lunge over the table and grab him by his collar. Before he could, the Prime Alpha’s dominance smashed into both of them. Shane suppressed a soft whimper before he and Gage both gave up their power match.
For good measure, Dominic’s hand gripped Shane’s shoulder to keep him seated. The prick of sharp talons registered on his skin. Shane glanced at Cole and realized the cop had a similar hold on Gage’s bicep, but tight enough that a whiff of blood met Shane’s senses.
“Not here,” Dominic growled.
Gage ran a hand through his hair and visibly shrank in his seat. “Sorry, boss.” Then, he looked up to Shane. “You’re right. That was low. About Kimberly, I mean. I take it back.”
If Shane thought he could rip out of the Prime Alpha’s hold without tearing his shirt, Shane would have burst out of his chair to grab Gage and haul him outside.
He didn’t want this to be over. Gage needed to be given a good thrashing for what he implied about Kimberly.
Almost equally, Dominic and Cole deserved a pounding for laughing at the joke.
Instead, he took a second to breathe. Going to fight for Kimberly and risking the hospitality of the Prime Alpha didn’t seem extreme in this moment.
It felt right. It felt natural. Gage might have been trying to lighten the mood, but he crossed a line.
Maybe Dominic was right that now wasn’t the time, and this wasn’t the place, but Shane’s impression of Gage was permanently scarred.
The alpha that sat across the table from him wasn’t worth dog shit and definitely wasn’t good enough to be Kimberly’s alpha if he was so willing to make jokes at her expense.
An errant thought about trying to steal her away from Gage’s pack surfaced and he decided to entertain it … at least for a little while. Taking Kimberly with him when he left Tolstone was a mighty nice alternative to leaving her behind forever.
*
Over the weekend, Kimberly resolved to explore these conflicted feelings for Shane.
The key to her healing was in the years she spent as his best friend, then his girlfriend, before life decided to make sure she would fight for happiness again.
If she could somehow step into that era again, then maybe she could shift into a wolf.
If she could be friends with Shane, reconnect and rediscover a bit of that old fire they shared, maybe that would solve at least half of her problems. She didn’t like the idea of her worth or happiness being so anchored into any single person, especially a man, but Kimberly had reached the threshold of desperation.
They had no one to hold them back. Their fathers were out of the picture.
As long as Shane still saw beyond her lack of dominance and didn’t hold it against her, they might be able to have a good time while he was in Tolstone.
A couple of dates, or at least hanging out and talking about old times, it might even help to close up some old wounds and bring closure to that time of her life.
The fact that he wouldn’t be in Tolstone for long was still a little painful to think about. But, if he stayed long enough to help coax her wolf back from the brink of … whatever was going on with it, then it’d be worth losing him … again.
Kimberly continued to fight over whether that was too manipulative or if it was justifiable, given everything they had been through.
Exploiting Shane for the sake of reversing her shifting problem seemed like an even exchange for how he practically abandoned her and the future they had dreamed of together.
But did she really want to be the kind of person who used someone else for her own gain?
Wasn’t that just like the people who hurt her in the past?
The kind of person she never wanted to be?
She still wasn’t at a conclusion by Monday morning when she opened the flower shop. Time was up and she had to decide.
While she began her restock order on the computer, Kimberly heard the rumble of his truck pull into the back parking lot.
Her hands began to shake a little, making her fingers fumble on the keyboard.
When she heard the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel, she stood and met him at the door. His fist was raised to knock.
“Hi.” It came out a little louder and more high-pitched than Kimberly wanted.
Off to a great start.
Whether it was the suddenness of her opening the door or her greeting, Shane’s brows rose. “Mornin’.”
The roll of his deep, mature voice hit differently after everything she had thought about over the weekend.
Kimberly sucked in a nervous breath and moved aside to let him in.
But he didn’t enter right away. He whipped something out of his back pocket.
With the kind of precision like he had to do it a thousand times, Shane hooked a cloth mask around one ear, stretched it across his nose and mouth, and then hooked the band on his other ear, all with one hand.
A loaded tool bag was in his other hand.
The mask probably wasn’t enough to block out all the floral aromas, but she bet it helped a little.
Kimberly tightened her lips to keep from smiling. “Is the smell that strong?”
Shane cocked one brow, as if to say, “You’re kidding me, right?”
Kimberly couldn’t hold in the soft, short laugh. She made every effort to forget that she was still mad at him for what he had done—or not done—ten years ago, and it proved easy with this little ice breaker. She hoped the rest of the day would be smooth sailing.
Shane walked through the prep room and into the lobby. Everything was the way he had left it, and he needed no invitation to get straight to work. Kimberly leaned her elbows on the counter and watched him pull out the drill with its fully charged battery and a plastic carton of screws.
After a couple of minutes, Kimberly realized she wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
She felt a little like a creeper, just leaning against the counter and watching him work.
While she got a kick out of the way he handled the drill, staring at him wasn’t going to soften the tension between them.
All of their interactions up to this point had been icy and harsh.
She needed to forge a connection, not unlike what Shane tried to do on Saturday and she blocked him out.
She took a deep breath and plunged in. “Can I ask a personal question?”
Shane looked over his shoulder, frozen, holding the drill poised against a screw with one hand while the other stabilized the wood junction with the other. The open look in his eye told her he hadn’t realized she was still there.
“About what?” The question came out a little muffled because of the mask over his mouth.
“Why are you here in Tolstone?” Kimberly did her best to keep the curiosity out of her voice, as if they were having a simple, easy conversation.
But nothing about that question was easy. It meant Shane would have to open up, to share what big, bad thing happened to his pack to drive him into the protection of the Prime Alpha. From what Kimberly witnessed, the events that brought shifters to Tolstone were never good.
Shane sat back on his heels and rested his drill on his muscular thigh. “You remember Kevin?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s alpha of Warrington now.”
Kimberly tilted her head like a confused puppy. “You gave him Warrington?”
Shane all but glared at her. “No. He challenged me and I lost.”